


Wide Awake and Dreaming

by mydeira



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-08
Updated: 2012-02-08
Packaged: 2017-10-30 19:52:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/335455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mydeira/pseuds/mydeira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The universe is full of impossible things, especially for those associated with the Doctor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wide Awake and Dreaming

Amy scanned the room. It was a real room—bedroom—and fancy at that, not the space she’d carved out for herself in the machine room of the Two Streams Facility. She was dreaming again, then. Although, she generally didn’t dream this lavishly. She couldn’t afford to.  
  
“Ah, Amy, good, you’re awake.”  
  
She was off the bed, immediately on guard. But her trusty katana wasn’t at hand. And her piecemeal armor was gone.  Instead she wore... “Bunny pajamas?” She glared at the man in the doorway. “Where the hell are my clothes?”  
  
The man smiled pleasantly, the light glinting off his round spectacles as he nodded his head slightly toward the corner. “Exactly where you left them, of course.”  
  
Her worn clothes were folded neatly on the seat of the armchair with her armor stack tidily on the floor beside it. And there was her sword, leaning in the corner, exactly where she’d left it.  
  
But she hadn’t, had she?  
  
Amy frowned and turned back to the man. “I don’t understand.”  
  
“You were tired when you arrived, so you decided to lie down, then you woke up, and now here we are.” His voice was as soothing as his smile and Amy found herself reassured in spite of her doubts.  
  
“Dr. Moon, what did I tell you?” another voice spoke from the hallway. It was familiar, female, but Amy hadn’t heard that voice in so many years.  
  
The man stepped farther into the room, demeanor unchanged. “It’s what I do. When people are agitated, I put them at ease.”  
  
“Which is admirable but unnecessary,” the woman responded. Then she entered the room, a mass of golden-red curls framing a face both younger and older than Amy recalled.  
  
“River?”  
  
“Hello, Amy. Welcome to the Library.”  
  
“The what?”  
  
Dr. Moon opened his mouth to reply, but River cut him off. “I can handle this.”  
  
“Of course. I’ll be nearby, if you should need me.” He inclined his head toward Amy. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Amy.”  
  
And then Dr. Moon was no longer there. He hadn’t walked out of the room, nor had he transmatted out. Just one minute he was there and the next not.  
  
“You’ll get used to that,” River assured her. “It’s how things work around here.”  
  
“And here is where you said? The Library?” It sure didn’t look like a library, at least any she’d ever been to. Then again, maybe in the time she’d spent at the facility libraries had started offering guest rooms.  
  
Time.  
  
“Actually, _when_ am I?”  
  
River’s smile was sad. “Let’s talk somewhere more comfortable.”  
  
There wasn’t a single cloud in the achingly blue sky. A light breeze blew across the lake, ruffling the tablecloth of the small cafe table where they sat.  
  
“Do you still take your tea with as much sugar as it will hold?” River asked.  
  
Amy started to reply but the words caught in her throat. She hadn’t had tea over thirty-six years. Or food for that matter. The facility sort of made that unnecessary. “I don’t know.”  
  
And hold on, hadn’t they just been in her bedroom?  
  
River nudged a cup over to her. “Try this. Tea always helps.”  
  
“You sound like my mum.”  
  
“No, I sound like my mum.”  
  
Unsure of how to respond, Amy sipped her tea. As perfect as the best cup she had ever had. “This is good.”  
  
“Like the best cuppa you ever had?”  
  
“Sort of, yeah.”  
  
“That’s something else you’ll get used to.”  
  
“You keep saying that but it has yet to start making any sense.”  
  
River sipped her tea and stared out at the water. “What’s the last thing you remember? Before waking up here?”  
  
Amy was seriously doubting that waking part since only in dreams did you hop from one thing to another and have it all make perfect sense even though none of it was connected. Still, she decided to humor River. What else was there to do?  
  
Before she woke up in the room with the strange Dr. Moon and the goofy pajamas there had been white. Lots of white. Bright then darkness. And before that...the Handbots. She’d finally let them get her because... Because... The Doctor had finally come for her. And Rory. Rory crying like his heart was breaking because...  
  
“The Doctor made Rory choose. _I_ made Rory choose. Between me and...me.” Amy cradled the cup of tea, savoring the warmth seeping through the fine porcelain. “He chose her and I’m not supposed to exist. So this can’t be the afterlife. People who never existed don’t go anywhere.”  
  
“Oh, there’s always the Library.”  
  
“You keep saying that, but you have yet to tell me what this Library is.”  
  
River chuckled. “I think you only got more Scottish the older you got. Never lost the accent and certainly never the stubbornness.”  
  
“Well, being Scottish has worked in my favor more times than not.” Amy gave River a level stare. “And don’t think I don’t notice how you keep not answering me.”  
  
“Yes, Mummy.”  
  
Despite her frustration, Amy felt herself smile. “You only ever called me that when I irritated you, especially when we were growing up.”  
  
“I still can’t believe it took you until I regenerated in front of you before the bloody penny dropped.” River smirked. “Then again, you always thought Rory was gay and not dead gone on you, so...”  
  
“And neither of you have ever let me forget that.”  
  
“Amy, darling, you’re brilliant and incredibly thick.”  
  
“Yeah, well...” This shouldn’t feel so perfectly natural after so many years on her own. Chatting to anyone, especially River, and yet... “The Library is a dream, isn’t it?”  
  
“That’s one way of looking at it.” River picked up one of the Jammy Dogers that hadn’t been on the table a moment ago and nibbled on it. “This place is as much a dream as it is reality. When you’re nothing but data running through a giant computer, it makes as much sense as anything else.”  
  
What was that movie Rory had liked so much? “I’m in the Matrix?”  
  
River wrinkled her nose. “Ugh, I hated that movie.”  
  
“People living in a giant computer program? You don’t see the similarities?”  
  
“I do, but I still hated the movie.”  
  
“So?”  
  
“Can’t I finish my snack first?”  
  
“Something tells me you can get them whenever you want.”  
  
“And eat as many as I want and never have it make a difference. Still.”  
  
“River.”  
  
“Fine, fine.” River set the half-eaten Dodger aside and wiped the crumbs off her hands. “The Library is a library. A giant planet full every book ever written right up through somewhere in the mid-fiftieth century. And at the heart of the planet is CAL, an enormous computer mainframe who was once upon a time a little girl named Charlotte who was dying. This is the world her father gave her so she could keep on living. And Dr. Moon is her caretaker both in here and out there.”  
  
Amy supposed she had seen stranger things since she crossed paths with the Doctor. If the universe can be unmade and remade and your fiancé can come back from oblivion due to the power of thought and you can live thirty-six years in a place with kind killer robots where you didn’t have to eat and lived alone...yeah, this was par for the course. “Okay, I believe you.”  
  
“It wouldn’t change things if you didn’t.”  
  
“Fair enough. So what brought you here? And don’t tell me spoilers because I think I’m a little beyond those at this point.”  
  
River smiled. “Force of habit.”  
  
“Moving on,” Amy prompted.  
  
“Oh fine. The Library was a real library but the books were infested with Vashta Nerada. When the Vashta Nerada hatched, they were hungry, but instead of letting the Library patrons get eaten by savage shadow carnivores, CAL saved them. In here. Over four thousand people living out dream-like lives for over a century.” River grabbed up the rest of her cookie and chewed on in, clearly pausing for dramatic effect.  
  
It worked well. “Then what?”  
  
“Then the Doctor came.”  
  
“Of course he bloody well did.”  
  
River raised an eyebrow.  
  
“Come on, tell me I’m wrong.”  
  
“No, not really.”  
  
Vindicated, Amy sat back. “Thank you. Now you may continue.”  
  
“If there was ever any doubt, I certainly got my smugness from you.”  
  
“Yes, you did. Now, story, continue.”  
  
“Yes, Mummy.” River smirked. “So the Doctor came, but only because I asked him to. As you know we’re always meeting back to front.”  
  
Amy nodded.  
  
“This time the universe really did get the last laugh because the Doctor who came had never crossed paths with me before.” River stood up and paced away. “I told Rory once that the day I met the Doctor and the Doctor didn’t know me that it would kill me.” She gave a bitter laugh. “I was being metaphorical.”  
  
Now it was nighttime with the stars twinkling brightly overhead. It was still disconcerting, but Amy decided to accept it and got up to join River at the fence overlooking the pond that was now an ocean.  
  
“So this is the afterlife,” Amy stated.  
  
“Probably the closest thing there is to one, but not really. My body is gone, yet the important stuff got uploaded here.” The breeze picked up and they both shivered. “It took me awhile to figure out that it was the TARDIS still looking out for me, and that’s why I didn’t fry completely during the data transfer. I thought it strange when I got my own sonic screwdriver after so many years, then it made sense. She’s my parent every bit as much as you and Rory, and being everywhen, well, she’d find a way. Like she did when the universe ended. And when the Silurian killed dad, she used the crack in the universe to give him a second chance.”  
  
“And yet she let the Doctor lock me out so the other me could live on.”  
  
Now River faced her. “But you still exist, don’t you? No paradox, yet both Amys get to live.”  
  
“So he felt guilty and decided to save me after all.”  
  
“Guilt is every bit a part of the Doctor as his optimism and propensity for telling lies. But yes, he always regretted what he had to do, especially since things were never quite the same with Rory after that.”  
  
“But Rory didn’t lose anything. He still had all those years with that other me.”  
  
“And he also lost you. You know Rory, he wants everyone to be happy, to save everyone, even when he knows he can’t.”  
  
“Yeah, that’s Rory.” Amy’s heart twinged, or what passed for her heart in this place. “So Rory found a way after all.”  
  
“Perhaps. And a little bit of reminder from the TARDIS. I also doubt I could’ve managed without Miss Evangelista’s help.” River looked fond. “The girl was dumb as a post and about as useful out there, but when she got pulled into the mainframe a few bits of data got transposed and she’s now very much the opposite.”  
  
“There’s other people here, besides us?”  
  
River nodded. “My entire team from the mission--Dave, other Dave, and Anita. Miss Evangelista was Mr. Lux’s assistant and the first to get eaten. Dr. Moon you’ve already met; he’s the caretaker of this place. And there’s Charlotte who might be a little shy at first, but then you won’t be able to shake her. Anything you can tell her about the outside world she’ll love.”  
  
“Which isn’t much,” Amy admitted. “I’ve been at the facility for most of my life now, everything before that I tried to forget.” She leaned against the railing. “I can’t help feeling like I’ve traded one prison for another. Although, things do feel a bit more real here.”  
  
“As real as you want it to be.”  
  
“What if I don’t want to be here? What if I just want to...stop?”  
  
River frowned, then shrugged. “It’s your choice, Amy. I brought you here because I had to try. Whether you stay here or choose oblivion is entirely up to you. But unlike the facility, at least you have company here. And if you tire of us, you’ve got an endless supply of books to literally get lost in. Dave started in on the Agatha Christie oeuvre and we haven’t seen him for a while, but Dr. Moon assures us he’s fine.”  
  
The sun was just starting to rise, the sky going from dark to pink-gray and they were now back at the cafe table. Amy picked up her tea and found it as warm as she’d left it. Okay, this place did have its perks.  
  
They sat in silence, until River finally spoke. “So, what do you think you might do?”  
  
Given the choice between oblivion and some place new, albeit not real, the answer was pretty obvious. “I might stick around for a bit. I like the food so far and I’m a sucker for a good book. Why not?”  
  
“So very Scottish.”  
  
“Don’t knock it, missy, you’re half Scottish, too.”  
  
“And that’s why I can knock it.”  
  
Amy smiled and it felt good.


End file.
